Satellite Netcom: 300Mbps

Lolita_Magnum

ᓚᘏᗢ
Messages
2,615
Location
Cork
ISP
Virgin Media
While I was in Ireland, my parents complained numerous times that the Internet (back home - AS138790 Sankrish Systems And Technologies Pvt Ltd - bgp.tools) is slow, unstable, lags a lot, or often times just drops out. Now that I have been back for some time, I found out it is true. However, the situation is not that simple. Any traffic that essentially uses direct peering works fine, but if that traffic needs to go through the ISP's upstream, then it throttles down to 1-2 Mbps, often times not working at all.

My parents were frustrated and had called the old LCO (see review here: One Broadband Mumbai : 200Mbps Review - India Broadband Forum) to see if he could help. He said that they are using a different provider, i.e., Satellite Netcom, and it is reliable. So here's the review.

Note: I personally know the LCO, but there's no bias.

Installation: I had called him in the morning (about ~11am), and his team had completed installation by 2pm. I am using my own ONU & router (Mikrotik), and all he did was the fiber installation.

Since this ONU was previously used on his OLT, he never really removed it, so it was just a simple plug-and-play.

In total, I paid him 4500 INR for 300 Mbps for 6 months, which comes at about 750 pm. There was no installation charge, and since I am using my own ONU, there's no cost for that either.

There is supposed to be IPv6 availability, but it has not worked for me, nor is it a priority at the moment. Current IPv4 is CGNAT behind subnet 103.233.94.0/24.

Port reachability shows "Open" to "Moderate" in most games; I am yet to see "Closed or Restricted."

The upstream for ASN: AS137166 Satellite Netcom Private Limited - bgp.tools is NTT (AS17439), who further uses Tata as their upstream. So, for a global backbone, it's 100% going to be Tata. Locally, Satellite Netcom has direct peering with multiple content provider ASNs, it hosts its own CDN cache, and it peers at IX Extreme & De-CIX Mumbai, both of which have worked quite well.

Important Bits: I used flood ping for this ("-c 500 -f")
Code:
--- 8.8.8.8 ping statistics ---
500 packets transmitted, 499 received, 0.2% packet loss, time 1010ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.198/1.925/2.103/0.064 ms, ipg/ewma 2.023/1.942 ms

--- 76.76.2.0 ping statistics ---
500 packets transmitted, 500 received, 0% packet loss, time 1002ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.257/1.935/2.865/0.142 ms, ipg/ewma 2.007/1.914 ms

--- 46.232.210.29 ping statistics ---
500 packets transmitted, 500 received, 0% packet loss, time 8320ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 126.778/127.401/128.171/0.256 ms, pipe 9, ipg/ewma 16.672/127.383 ms

--- 162.159.192.5 ping statistics ---
500 packets transmitted, 500 received, 0% packet loss, time 999ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.733/1.925/2.756/0.069 ms, ipg/ewma 2.001/1.928 ms

Traceroute: (Used the following modifier: ("-twrbzc 6")
Code:
  1. AS???    192.168.200.254                                                   0.0%     6    0.3   0.3   0.2   0.4   0.1
  2. AS???    10.10.200.6                                                       0.0%     6    1.0   1.0   0.8   1.1   0.1
  3. AS???    ???                                                              100.0     6    0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0
  4. AS137166 103.87.164.88                                                     0.0%     6    1.5   1.8   1.4   2.3   0.4
  5. AS17439  180.179.10.181                                                    0.0%     6    1.3   1.2   1.0   1.7   0.3
  6. AS4755   14.142.189.209.static-mumbai.vsnl.net.in (14.142.189.209)         0.0%     6    2.5   2.3   2.1   2.6   0.2
  7. AS???    ???                                                              100.0     6    0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0
  8. AS6453   ix-ae-0-100.tcore1.mlv-mumbai.as6453.net (180.87.38.5)            0.0%     6    3.2   2.9   2.4   3.2   0.3
  9. AS???    ???                                                              100.0     6    0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0
 10. AS6453   if-bundle-2-2.qcore2.mlv-mumbai.as6453.net (209.58.105.0)        83.3%     6  128.4 128.4 128.4 128.4   0.0
 11. AS???    ???                                                              100.0     6    0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0
 12. AS6453   if-bundle-29-2.qcore5.ldn-london.as6453.net (80.231.76.127)      66.7%     6  127.1 127.2 127.1 127.4   0.2
 13. AS6453   if-bundle-8-2.qcore2.av2-amsterdam.as6453.net (195.219.136.118)  33.3%     6  128.2 129.0 128.2 129.6   0.6
 14. AS199524 92.223.127.65                                                     0.0%     6  127.3 127.4 127.1 128.0   0.3
 15. AS208959 46.232.210.29                                                     0.0%     6  127.4 127.2 127.0 127.4   0.1

$ steampipe.akamaized.net
  1. AS???    192.168.200.254   0.0%     6    0.2   0.2   0.2   0.3   0.0
  2. AS???    10.10.200.6       0.0%     6    0.6   0.8   0.6   1.0   0.2
  3. AS???    ???              100.0     6    0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0
  4. AS137166 103.87.164.136    0.0%     6    1.7   1.4   0.9   1.7   0.4

  1. AS???    192.168.200.254                       0.0%     6    0.2   0.3   0.2   0.3   0.0
  2. AS???    10.10.200.6                           0.0%     6    1.0   1.0   0.3   1.3   0.3
  3. AS???    ???                                  100.0     6    0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0
  4. AS137166 103.87.164.88                         0.0%     6    1.7   1.8   1.3   2.1   0.3
  5. AS???    103.27.170.168                        0.0%     6    2.0   1.9   1.3   2.5   0.4
  6. AS???    ???                                  100.0     6    0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0
  7. AS398962 p0.freedns.controld.com (76.76.2.0)   0.0%     6    1.8   2.1   1.5   2.4   0.3

  1. AS???    192.168.200.254                                             0.0%     6    0.2   0.2   0.2   0.3   0.0
  2. AS???    10.10.200.6                                                 0.0%     6    0.8   0.7   0.3   1.0   0.2
  3. AS???    ???                                                        100.0     6    0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0
  4. AS137166 103.87.164.88                                               0.0%     6    1.5   1.7   1.4   2.2   0.3
  5. AS17439  180.179.10.181                                              0.0%     6    1.9   1.5   0.9   1.9   0.4
  6. AS4755   14.142.189.209.static-mumbai.vsnl.net.in (14.142.189.209)   0.0%     6    2.0   2.1   1.3   2.7   0.6
  7. AS???    ???                                                        100.0     6    0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0   0.0
  8. AS24216  2.171.31.119.virtela.net (119.31.171.2)                     0.0%     6    4.1   4.0   3.5   4.2   0.3

Screenshot-2026-06-10-185019.png

Not doing torrents, and since NAT type is moderate, torrents will work decently.
The general websites (that are usually blocked on major ISPs) are accessible here. I don't know how.
No blocking or tampering of FTP or any other kind, nor are the ports being aggressively reset. SSH remains connected even when idle for longer periods.
For Steam-Downloads Getting full speeds. (Traceroute above)
You get a standard PlayboxTV subscription (no additional cost) for the duration of the plan.
He didn't advertise this to me, nor have I ever used it.

Verdict:
So far so good; the L1 of this LCO was always reliable. It was always the upstream that caused issues.
I am not going to do speedtest.net, as I find it false & meaningless. If you want to do your own traceroute & ping tests, then you can use my probe at RIPE Atlas - RIPE Network Coordination Centre
Let me know what else you'd like to know.
 
Man i wish i had such plans here lol
im paying 1000rs a month for 200mbps for 7 star broadband.

it suffices my needs very well but it wont hurt to get 300mbps for the same price
 
It's all about the competition. At least they are reliable, unlike Hathway. I remember when I used to live in Juhu; 7-star was the only provider there (they had politicians in their pockets). They used to charge extortionate prices and threaten all ISPs who even tried to set foot.
 
oh they did that here as well. I have known 7 star since childhood (2007 or so) and even then it was the same story.
now due to Jio Fiber they have made plans a bit competitive.
 
damn
Only way im happy with current ISP is reliability. last year it was online 360/365 Days, connection only interrupted when tree fell on fiber cables or something like that.
 
@Kyle Crane bro I feel one pays for reliability and uptime and not speed imo. Even if the LCO is a goon but makes sure that line is always up, it's worth paying a little extra. You have a great uptime honestly, even big players like Airtel and Tata and Jio fail to deliver service like that. Money wise its more or less the same when you compare but 200 Mbps for 1k a month is a solid deal given the uptime and reliability.
 
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